Senate President Peter Courtney introduced a controversial bill Monday that would allow Oregon community colleges and public universities to voluntarily merge, a proposal that nobody in higher education circles was clamoring for but Courtney said could potentially mean big savings for cash-strapped students.

The legislation would require schools to submit a joint proposal to the state's Higher Education Coordinating Commission outlining the details, timeline and potential cost-savings of the merger.

Courtney, a Salem Democrat, said the opportunities for cost savings are obvious. "You have one president. You have one administration. You have serious savings," he said in an interview.

It also would make it easier and cheaper for students to move between the two systems.

The bill comes during a jam-packed Legislative session that will include calls from higher education leaders to dramatically increase state support for public education to offset rising pension and medical costs. Lawmakers also face a more than $1.7 billion revenue shortfall.

"If you want to make a lot of enemies in a relatively short period of time, propose merging college campuses," said Tom Harnisch, director of state relations at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Harnisch said states are increasingly turning to mergers or closing campuses as a way to cut costs. Georgia, in particular, has aggressively eyed mergers to save money.

But mergers are complex, controversial and present a "minefield of political, legal and administrative issues," Harnisch said.

Andrea Henderson, executive director of the Oregon Community College Association doesn't think having the option to merge is a bad idea but doesn't see administrative bloat as an issue at two-year schools. "We're so thin, I'm not sure there would be much cost-savings," she said.

Courtney's interest in making it easier for community college students to transfer to universities is also laudable, she said.

Dana Richardson, executive director of the Oregon Public Universities Council of Presidents, said the university leaders haven't taken a formal position on the bill. "He really is trying to get at some affordability issues for students," she said.

It's never a bad thing to have the Senate president take an interest in higher education, Richardson said, and she called Courtney one of the most knowledgeable lawmakers on post-secondary issues in the Legislature.

Oregon's seven public universities and 17 community colleges will ask lawmakers for a combined $184 million more than Gov. Kate Brown recommended in her budget, with the promise of raising tuition if they don't see significant increases.

Courtney said that's a familiar tactic. Colleges will "always go there" and look at raising tuition rather than slashing salaries or other options.

"We should be forced to discuss this and not turn away from it," he said of the merger bill.

Courtney said merging would be a good option for Portland State and Portland Community College. Those two entities joining forces would create a school "unprecedented in the entire country."

PSU and PCC issued a joint statement Monday afternoon saying Courtney hadn't directly approached the institutions. The schools already have a close-relationship, according to the statement. "Currently, more than 5,400 PSU students are PCC transfers, making up nearly one-third of PSU's total undergraduates. In addition, under the PSU-PCC joint admissions program, 3,592 PCC students are currently co-admitted to PSU, which enables them to seamlessly transfer their credits to PSU when they transfer."

Courtney said he first debated the idea in 2006 with then-Western Oregon University President John Minahan, but it never made it to the Legislature. In the decade since, Oregon's public universities added independent governing boards, and costs continued to soar for smaller schools like Southern, Western and Eastern.

Those schools are "fragile," he said.

"The cost today of maintaining these things is astronomical. How are we going to keep them alive?" he said.

So far, Courtney said he's been surprised at the lack of an emotional response from schools and lawmakers to the proposal.